What do you think “I am that I am” meant?
I foresee two interpretations:
I am what I am.
I am so that I am.
The first one is of the form “X is X” - a tautology.
The second one is something a little more weird - it says God’s existence is the foundation for His existence.
Comments on these interpretations? Got your own interpretation?
Speaking from a purely metaphysical perspective:
I am that I am.
I am what I am.
I am that you aspire to I am.
I am that all can be, because I am.
I am that there is no without I am.
I am time I am.
I am matter I am.
I am void I am.
Just my perceptions.
How 'bout “I am Sam I am”?
You asked for interpretations, and then you give a puerile response.
fini.
It was just a joke.
Err…sorry, I don’t like your choices. I think it means something like I am, I have been, I will be. i.e. God is eternal.
Something that is eternal (and the totality of everything) defies normal identification, because an identity is composed of limits. I believe the word is YHWH in the Bible, which could (arguably) be translated as a combination of the Hebrew words for “He is,” “He was,” and “He will be.” Another translation is “He will cause to become,” which seems to refer to God’s role as creator. (source)
You have to read the pentateuch and especially the 50 chapters of Genesis very carefully–to see why God answers that way. Don’t forget–it doesn’t mean anything. You follow in its shadow—“blessed is he who walks in the name of the Lord”–that is his name, among others.
That’s flying a bit over my head, snowblue 
. Care to explain please?
What do you mean ‘what does it mean?’
Doesn’t it mean what it says? Are you insinuating there’s a deeper meaning behind it?
You’re not - are you - you’re not actually saying … do you mean God tried to imply that he was gay?
Come one… We all now that! He was bisexual at the very least. No need for Him to be all mystifying there.
No, I think it says what it says; I am THAT I am. In other words; I am, and that’s all there is to me.
I am something and somebody.
Clean your lense with some scriptures please 
.
X is X because X wants to be xxx.
God is inside a expensive bottle of champagne ,
God must accept what is inside the bottle of champagne.
God’s existence is the foundation for his existence.
yes , iv’e already said it though.
Yes, it says I am WHAT I am. That, who, none of that comes into play. He is what he is. That is all it says.
Jon F
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This was my take on that.
I am that I am.
I am your God.
I am your friend.
I am whatever you need!
In so many ways that is why God is “I AM”
(please do not confuse wants with needs)
Exodus 3
13And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
I am WHAT I am… and I am THAT I am are 2 completely different statements.
I am that I am says that all of our words, interpretations, and concepts cannot describe God. God cannot be understood or explained at the level of thought.
It does not say I am this or I am that. Just the opposite… I am not this, not that… I am that I am.
what it means means what it means.
end of discussion
I ask this question before, if you wish to seek the answers look in the past.
I AM and I AM THAT I AM are both translations of the word EHEIEH.
Jews say the Torah is Gods body, the Talmud is His robe and the quaballah is His soul.
You’ll find EHEIEH elaborately dealth with when you pick up any study on the latter.
It simply means that God exists.God has no name, no body, nor anything to identify Him with. He simply is, that he is. 
[My] existence is the same as [my] essence.
Not mine, but one that I like:
Is Yahweh a Boy?
I will argue a new thesis: in Genesis 2:5–3:24, the Creation-Fall episode which is the earliest part of the Biblical “J text,” Yahweh was originally pictured to be a presexual child of about twelve.
from that article,
The boy god hypothesis even goes further than any other toward explaining Yahweh’s notoriously puzzling name. “The Hebrew word Yahweh is a verb functioning as a noun,” Jack Miles explains, “most likely the abbreviation of an ancient sentence-name,” such as “Dances with Wolves,” which could become “Dances” for short (JM, 420). Canaanite gods sometimes have such names (and so do we: “Tills the Earth” is my own name, “George”). The problem is that “yahweh” is a verb. Attempts to theorize this as meaning “Pure Being” are hopelessly abstract, given the era and J’s anthropomorphic deity.
My student, Stefan Klocek, points out that if what the original fabulists wished to signal was “a god who grows from a boy-god into a mature adult god,” perhaps the name represents
[a way] to refer to this god in terms of his metamorphosis. . . . It is possible that the J tradition was highly aware of the growth of their god, and indeed relied on it as an explanation for his failure to prove himself as a powerful god. It was far easier to explain why their god had failed to prevent another god from causing harm to them, if their own god was “just too young.” Eventually they came to refer to their god not as God, but as their “future god”: “He who will become our god.”
In fact, in the Creation–Fall episode, Yahweh is repeatedly called “Yahweh God,” literally “Will Be God,” or “Becoming God,” or “The God To Be.”
Good topic guys.
I believe that Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh means, I am that I am. Beyond the literal meaning of the words, it is a fairly direct statement of conciousness, or awareness as well as one of being or existence.
The post about the name Yahweh meaning “to be” reminds me of the way the Modern Day Setians, see the Egyptian god, SET and his association with the egyptian term xeper which I believe means, to become or becoming as well.
Well, I got the version going “I am being that I am being” which, I think, is to reflect the fact of putting one’s (vibrant) identitity in one’s (deepest) sense of existence. How about that?